Reikos
Overview
Reikos borders the Great Forest of Peytaht. At its edges, the Great Forest was an abundant source of lumber, but its heart is wild, untamed and notoriously hard to defend. This peaceful stretch of the Couros river was also home to pleasure gardens, parks and country estates.
In 367 YE Reikos fell to barbarians who took advantage of the cover of the Great Forest to launch numerous assaults against the fertile territory. The territory was lost along with half the wealth of Highguard. Many Benefactors were ruined in the attack, and those many more are still struggling to restore their fortunes.
Minor Settlements
Haros
A chapter that straddles the river, the endpoint of trade from the Bay up into Highguard. It is currently under siege, like Tabernacle, but holds its river gates clear, and every so often daring forays by expert sailors manage to get word or goods in and out down the fast-flowing Couros. Its inhabitants have refused to give it up.
High Chalcis
Where the combined knowledge of the alchemists of all the ages was stored. At the Chapterhouses of High Chalcis the medical knowledge of Empire was categorised, and the plants there mentioned tended in the Gardens. Even Urizen acknowledged there was Wisdom here. It is now lost, as High Chalcis fell to a surprise attack, and it’s unclear how much knowledge might remain to be regained.
Exile
Was built round a Chapterhouse where the Unconquered trained in solitude. A hard place, for trials designed to harden the soul, and now fallen. In the last days of the siege, the choice to hold against overwhelming odds or leave with honour was given to all of the recruits, not a one of whom chose to leave. In battle now, you will hear the Unconquered say: “Remember Exile. We will return.”
Tabernacle
A well-fortified triple-ringed chapter whose settlements sprawled outside its walls in long years of peace, now under siege as barbarians march from Reikos to cut the land route between Anvil and Bastion. Save for the besieged Haros, it is now the front line, many of the outlying houses razed in defense before the enemy attacked.
Places of Interest
The Gardens of Chalcis
Said to contain every kind of flower, fruit and herb in the known world and a haven of tranquility and the study of the healing arts.
The Sign of Tamar
A vast sigil incised into the plain in northern Reikos, created by digging long trenches in the earth. No-one is sure what it is for. There is no viewpoint nearby where the entire figure can be seen clearly, although scholars have paced out the sigil and drawn it, and declared it a humanoid figure that matches the constellation called the Drowned Man. No-one is sure who or what Tamar was, either...
The Great Forest at Reikos
The Great Forest at Reikos would be a Bourse position producing weirwood. It is not currently being auctioned.